'Minor incident': Guardian journalist David Leigh told the Leveson Inquiry today that his interception of voicemails had been 'ethical'

Illegal phone-hacking may be justified in the public interest if it exposes corruption, an investigative journalist told the Press standards inquiry yesterday.

David Leigh, an assistant editor at the Guardian newspaper, said he had once hacked the phone of an arms dealer and believed the circumstances made it ‘perfectly ethical’.

He told how he had also ‘blagged’ information from Mark Thatcher to expose his relationship with an arms company, while Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.

Blagging is a term given to the practice of trying to elicit information by impersonation.

In evidence to the Leveson inquiry into Press standards, Mr Leigh admitted hacking into the voicemail of an arms company executive and said there was a ‘voyeuristic thrill’ to listening to someone else’s private messages.

He said: ‘I don’t hack phones normally, I have never done anything like that since and I had never done anything like that before. On that particular occasion, this minor incident did seem to me perfectly ethical.’

Mr Leigh was reminded that there was no public interest defence for intercepting phone calls or messages, which is a criminal offence.

But David Barr, counsel to the inquiry, said Crown prosecutors could consider if an accused was acting in the public interest. Amid laughter, he added: ‘This may be your get-out-of-jail-free card.’

'Similar story': Mr Leigh said his actions were essentially different to those of Clive Goodman, left, who was jailed along with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, right, in January 2007

Mr Leigh, who is also a professor of
reporting at London’s City University, said: ‘There is always an
implicit public interest element about whether to prosecute or not.

‘I like to think that if the incident
I have described came to the attentions of the DPP [Director of Public
Prosecutions], and I was asked about it, the DPP would conclude that
there was no public interest in seeking to prosecute me or another
person for doing something like that. That is a backstop that the law
has to stop it making an ass of itself.’

Mr Leigh said there was a difference
between serious journalists seeking to expose corruption and ‘tabloid
cockroaches’, who hacked phones for celebrity gossip.

The
inquiry also heard from Charlotte Harris, a lawyer for alleged
phone-hacking victims, who said the News of the World's publishers had
enquired about the price of obtaining information about her children.

She said she had seen documents that revealed how she was put under surveillance by News Group Newspapers and contained private details about her family.

Ms Harris said it was natural as a mother to feel 'terribly uncomfortable' about
the idea of people investigating her children, who were aged two and
four at the time.

The media lawyer, who represents alleged hacking victims including Ulrika
Jonsson, former Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten and sports agent Sky Andrew, said
she was given an insight into her clients’ lives after learning a
private detective had spied on her.

'One of the difficulties with surveillance, and I hear this from clients
but I also speak for myself, is you don’t really know what happened
when,' she said.

'It is what you don’t know that can cause stress. That in itself might be a new form of harassment to look into.'

Ms Harris, of leading London firm Mishcon de Reya, told the
inquiry into press standards that she had first learned in May that she had been
put under surveillance.

She contacted Simon Greenberg, director of corporate affairs for NGN’s
parent company News International, who in September told her he
had uncovered more papers relating to what happened.

Ms Harris said in a witness statement: 'The documents contain comments
on my private life and that of my family, for example private
information contained within an email from (NGN solicitor) Julian Pike
to a private investigator in May 2010, and further emails about the
price of obtaining information relating to my children, then aged two
and four.

'There can be no justification for this conduct. The motive was to
attempt to discredit those solicitors who were conducting the
phone-hacking cases.

'The reports were prepared in order to find a way of stopping us acting in these cases.'

'Under surveillance': Lawyer Charlotte Harris told the inquiry that investigators had targeted her young children

The inquiry heard that NGN suspected Ms Harris and fellow media lawyer
Mark Lewis of exchanging confidential information gained by acting for
Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive Gordon Taylor in
his civil damages claim over the hacking of his phone by the News of the World.

Ms Harris strongly denied this suggestion, adding: 'They were not keen
on the fact that having done a phone hacking case, that we should
continue to do phone hacking cases.'

She questioned why NGN did not complain to her, her law firm or the Law Society if they had concerns about her conduct.

'To take out surveillance on me and my kids or family members, to find
out which of my siblings I lived with in what year - that kind of
information, I don’t see how that can possibly help them,' she said.

She also said that Tom Crone, the News of the World’s former head of
legal, was 'absolutely wedded' to the defence that phone hacking at the
News of the World was limited to a single 'rogue reporter'.

Another witness, Steven Nott, today told the inquiry about how he tried to warn newspapers and the authorities about phone hacking in 1999.

Mr Nott, a delivery driver from Cwmbran, South Wales, discovered how
easy it was to access other people’s voicemails remotely when he needed
to pick up messages from customers while Vodafone’s network was down.

The mobile phone company told him he could pick up
his voicemails by phoning his own mobile number and entering a default
PIN number.

Mr Nott said: 'I thought to myself, "this is insecure" straight away.

'I then said to the lady at customer services, "If this is the case, I
could ring anybody’s phone up using the same method and access their
voicemail."

'She said: "Yes, you could, but you’re not supposed to.”'

Mr Nott said he told journalists at the Daily Mirror and The Sun about the security loophole, but they did not run stories.

He said he also contacted official agencies including Scotland Yard,
MI5, the Home Office, the former Department of Trade and Industry, and
the former HM Customs and Excise, but none of them replied.